BookHive - Microservices E-Commerce

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BookHive is a microservices-based web platform for discovering, purchasing, and reviewing books, designed with high availability, scalability, and distributed traceability at its core.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Application
• Tools Used

Features

• Microservices-Based Architecture: Independent services built with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud, deployed autonomously and communicating through synchronous REST APIs.

• Centralized Discovery & Configuration: Service registration via Spring Cloud Netflix Eureka and centralized configuration using Spring Cloud Config Server.

• API Gateway: Spring Cloud Gateway provides a single entry point with dynamic routing, request filtering, load balancing, and security enforcement.

• Book Catalog Management: Search and browse books by title, author, and genre. Catalog data is persisted in MongoDB and populated with sample data using DataFaker.

• Shopping Cart & Orders: Full CRUD for cart items and orders, backed by a relational database (PostgreSQL) to ensure consistency and transactional integrity.

• User Authentication & Authorization: Secured with Spring Security and JSON Web Tokens (JWT). Supports ADMIN and CLIENT roles with fine-grained access control.

• User Reviews & Ratings: Users can publish and view book reviews and ratings, stored in PostgreSQL and linked to catalog entries.

• Payment Integration: Electronic payments handled through PayPal, simulating real purchase flows within the platform.

• Email Notifications & Billing: Transactional email service sends registration confirmations and purchase receipts. Invoices are generated as PDFs using JasperReports and delivered via SMTP.

• Distributed Tracing & Observability: Zipkin integration across all services enables end-to-end request tracing and performance diagnostics.

• Scalability & High Availability: Each microservice runs with multiple instances. Load distribution and health checks are handled by the API Gateway.

• Modern Frontend Architecture: Built with Next.js App Router, combining Server Components and Client Components for optimal performance, SEO, and interactivity.

• Global State Management: Lightweight global state handled with Zustand, primarily for shopping cart synchronization and UI state.

• Secure Client–Server Communication: All inter-service and client requests are protected with HTTPS, JWT validation, and strict CORS policies enforced at the Gateway.

• Containerized Deployment: All services, databases, and observability tools are containerized with Docker and orchestrated using Docker Compose, including replica definitions, networks, and shared volumes.

• Environment-Based Configuration: Service ports, credentials, security settings, and external integrations are fully configurable via environment variables.

• Tech Stack

  • Backend: Java, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud (Eureka, Gateway, Config), Spring Security, JWT
  • Databases: MongoDB, PostgreSQL
  • Frontend: Next.js, React, Tailwind CSS, Zustand
  • Observability: Zipkin
  • Payments & Reporting: PayPal, JasperReports
  • Containerization: Docker, Docker Compose

Application

A showcase is available in my portfolio!

Tools Used

• Spring Boot: Core backend framework used to implement independent microservices for catalog, orders, reviews, authentication, notifications, and billing.

• Spring Cloud: Provides service discovery (Eureka), centralized configuration (Config Server), and API Gateway for routing, load balancing, and resilience.

• Spring Security: Handles authentication and authorization using role-based access control (ADMIN / CLIENT) across all microservices.

• JSON Web Tokens (JWT): Stateless authentication mechanism used to secure client requests and inter-service communication.

• MongoDB: NoSQL database used to store and index the book catalog, enabling flexible search by title, author, and genre.

• PostgreSQL: Relational database used for shopping carts, orders, user reviews, and transactional data.

• Redis: In-memory data store used for caching, session handling, and improving performance across distributed services.

• Zipkin: Distributed tracing system used to track requests across microservices and identify performance bottlenecks.

• Next.js: Frontend framework using App Router, Server Components, and Client Components to deliver a performant and SEO-friendly user interface.

• React: Core UI library for building interactive components such as the catalog, shopping cart, checkout flow, and review system.

• Zustand: Lightweight state management library used to maintain global client-side state, primarily for the shopping cart.

• Tailwind CSS: Utility-first CSS framework used to build a modern, responsive, and consistent UI.

• PayPal: External payment gateway integrated to handle electronic payments and simulate real-world purchase flows.

• JasperReports: Reporting engine used to generate PDF invoices and billing documents.

• Docker: Containerization platform used to package each microservice, database, and auxiliary tool.

• Docker Compose: Orchestration tool defining and running the complete BookHive ecosystem with multiple services, replicas, networks, and volumes.